Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Sen. Rand Paul couldn’t have laid out a more appealingly wrong case that Social Security Disability is broken:

“What I tell people is, if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting your disability check. Over half of the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club,” he added. “Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts. Everybody over 40 has a little back pain.”

The problem isn’t that he is wrong, that, in fact, many people are severely debilitated by “anxiety”, and that “back pain” can be devastating. The problem is that what he says here is exactly how a lot of otherwise decent people really think about disability, and about Social Security Disability. In fact, there are probably a lot of disabled people who think this way, too.

The other big potential problem is that Rand Paul, specifically, gets way more benefit of more doubt than most Republicans, because he’s a “Libertarian”. He’s a U.S. foreign policy skeptic. He’s a rare, if inconsistent voice agains the National Security State. He’s favorably disposed towards pot legalization and against the War On Drugs. Sen. Paul is an appealing figure to people who crave someone with a “different” approach to the usual issues, but who aren’t that interested in following ideas to their logical policy conclusions.

I don’t know how to combat this kind of rhetoric, but we’d better figure out soon, because I think we’re going to hear a lot more of it in the near future.

I haven’t posted interesting disability-themed photos in quite awhile. Partly it’s because my initial enthusiasm for them has faded a bit. Related to that, I’ve started to realize that cool photos of disabled people usually don’t say as much as they seem to when you start paying attention to them. Once you get used to the idea that disabled people look hip and badass, it becomes sort of obvious and thus less remarkable. This is a good thing.

I am sharing links to Karyln Gehrig’s #hospitalglam collection because the photos are so beautiful and interesting, both in the context of disability and chronic illness, and in general as creative photography. Do click through and enjoy!